By Casey Wagner. December 7, 2022. (Blockworks).
A member of the House Committee on Financial Services is calling for the Government Accountability Office, known as Congress’ investigation arm, to look into the SEC and its “failure to protect the investing public” from FTX.
Rep. Ritchie Torres, D-N.Y., drafted the letter, dated Tuesday.
“Chair Gensler took the position that the SEC had clear authority to investigate crypto exchanges,” Torres told Blockworks via email.
“When it comes to government failure, the public official singularly responsible for failing to expose the FTX fraud is SEC Chair Gary Gensler.”
Torres also referred to the SEC’s handling of FTX as “egregious mismanagement.”
“If he had clear authority to do so, why did he fail to uncover the largest crypto Ponzi scheme in history?” Torres added. “It is on Congress to pass laws, but it is on the regulators to apply those laws to conduct investigations, and in the case of Gary Gensler, the regulators failed catastrophically. Chair Gensler has some explaining to do.”